Typhoon heads inland after killing 115

Page Tools

Rescue workers in eastern China searched for more victims while residents cleaned up today after one of the worst typhoons to hit the region in seven years killed 115 people and injured more than 1,800.

Residents in the storm-battered eastern province of Zhejiang woke up to power outages, uprooted trees and collapsed houses after Typhoon Rananim cut a swathe of destruction with torrential rain and gale force winds.

''The power supply has still not yet resumed in all parts of the city. It's hot and humid outside, with no more rain,'' a nurse at the Taizhou city Central Hospital said.

The storm had weakened and moved inland to the province of Jiangxi, but the death toll was expected to rise, officials said.

The typhoon hit the Zhejiang coast late on Thursday, leaving 16 people missing, causing widespread damage in the rice-growing province and knocking down more than 40,000 buildings, officials said.

As many as 1,800 people had been injured, including 185 who were seriously hurt, officials said. More than 8.6 million people had been affected by the storm, they said.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Another nurse at Taizhou's Central Hospital said staff were not warned about the coming storm on Thursday.

''Many people panicked because of the sudden typhoon. Lots of people on their bicycles or tricycles were pushed down on the ground. Power was cut off, many big trees were uprooted,'' she said.

Most were injured by shattered glass or buried under collapsed houses, doctors said.

Officials had evacuated more than 460,000 people from coastal areas of Zhejiang province to escape the storm.

The typhoon caused more than 15.3 billion yuan ($A2.58 billion) in direct economic losses, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying yesterday.

Officials and residents said the storm was the worst since 1997, when Typhoon Winnie struck the coast, killing nearly 250 people and causing 19.8 billion yuan in economic losses.

Rananim brought torrential rains and winds exceeding 160kph. The eye of the storm made landfall about 8.00pm (2200 AEST) on Thursday near the town of Wenling.

But in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai, where soaring temperatures has taxed the electricity grid and forced 2,100 factories to switch to graveyard shifts, the typhoon bought a measure of relief, state media said.

Power use yesterday in China's richest city fell to its lowest level since the end of June as the mercury dipped, leading to 1,600 firms having power restrictions lifted, the Jiefang Daily said.

But it said this may just be a temporary step, and the situation would be reviewed when the temperature climbs back to the 35C which the city has been broiling in for the last three weeks.

That had forced the government to decree the lights on the famous waterside Bund be turned off and public places restrict the use of air conditioning.

The only damage caused in Shanghai was the uprooting of 13 trees, the newspaper added.